The Great Pianist
This scherzo always fetches the women. I can hear them draw long breaths. That plump girl is getting pale. Well, why shouldn’t she? I suppose I’m about the best pianist she has ever heard—or ever will hear. What people can see in that Hambourg fellow I never could imagine. In Chopin, Schumann, Grieg, you might fairly say he’s pretty good. But it takes an artist to play Beethoven. (He rattles on to the end of the scherzo and there is more applause. Then he dashes into the finale.)
The Dean of the Critics
Too loud! Too loud! It sounds like an ash-cart going down an alley. But what can you expect? Piano-playing is a lost art. Paderewski ruined it.
The Great Pianist
I ought to clear 200,000 marks by this tournee. If it weren’t for those thieving agents and hotelkeepers, I’d make 300,000. Just think of it—twenty-four marks a day for a room! That’s the way these Americans treat a visiting artist! The country is worse than Bulgaria. I was treated better at Bucharest. Well, it won’t last forever. As soon as I get enough of their money they’ll see me no more. Vienna is the place to settle down. A nice studio at fifty marks a month—and the life of a gentleman. What was the name of that little red-cheeked girl at the café in the Franzjosefstrasse—that girl with the gold tooth and the silk stockings? I’ll have to look her up.
The Virgin
What an artist! What a master! What a——
The Married Woman
Has he really suffered, or is it just intuition?